


What This Is

by leftbrainhipcheck



Category: The West Wing
Genre: F/F, Ficlet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-21
Updated: 2013-05-21
Packaged: 2017-12-12 11:13:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/810940
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/leftbrainhipcheck/pseuds/leftbrainhipcheck
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things to which she has grown accustomed.  Artifice.  Strategy.  Isolation.  The taste of fear, and the swallowing of it.  Self-restraint; self-discipline; self-control.</p>
<p>This is not that.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What This Is

There are things to which she has grown accustomed.  Artifice.  Strategy.  Isolation.  The taste of fear, and the swallowing of it.  Self-restraint; self-discipline; self-control.

This is not that. 

This is CJ backing her into a wall.  This is CJ’s body pressed against hers, CJ’s mouth on her mouth, CJ’s fingers laced with her own.

This is CJ murmuring her name, over and over, her real name, _Kate, god, Kate_ , and with every repetition there is a shedding of some other skin, some other person, until there is no one left but herself, naked and plain.  She has washed the dye from her hair, and dropped the posturing, the pretense.  She is terrified; she is electrified.  This is not disguise, but its opposite.

In fact what this is is something Kate has never known before.  It is action without calculation: call and response.  It is tracing a hand down CJ's spine and savoring her shiver, sliding fingers inside her and learning the particular resonance of her moan, pressing her against a wall or floor or chair or desk with just the right amount of force so that there are bruises, later, to study, to trace.  (It is a completely different thing, she discovers, to bestow pain that is wanted; for the first time she is pleased to have this skill, this talent for knowing just how far to push, this ability to leave CJ sore and smiling.)

This thing is words whispered, bite marks hidden under blouses and button-downs; it is nodding at one another in hallways, carefully brushing against one another in crowded rooms.  A language of gazes held a beat too long, of heads tilted just so: another kind of code for Kate to unravel and enjoy.  It is fucking until 4am even though they shouldn’t, even though they have to be up in an hour, even though the country depends on their ability to string together a coherent sentence; it is fucking until 4am because they can, and because they can’t not.  It is blinking, startled, during quiet moments, as memories take Kate by surprise: of CJ’s hands, of her eyes shut tight, of surrender.  It is a new kind of flashback.  It is something she welcomes.  It is hunger, and the answering of it. 

It is something like becoming unbroken.


End file.
